Opinion: A friend who works in a public hospital told me, “You’ve come home at a difficult time. There are cuts and freezes everywhere. I can’t hire staff.” A news journalist described colleagues feeling under attack. They’re told they should make money as a business, and they’re vilified online as “fake news”.
A commentator talked about inadequate regulation of lobbying in New Zealand. Having ex-industry lobbyists in charge of government ministries, he said, is the political equivalent of “putting the fox in charge of the henhouse”.
At the local cafe, a patron said, “The brain drain is enormous!” In London, a friend who works as a government lawyer mentioned that New Zealand civil servants, freshly laid off, are turning up at his workplace in droves.
After months in Menton admiring the sea and mountains and Mediterranean skies, I’m struck all over again by the landscape back home. The clarity of Auckland light, cloud shadows on the volcanic cones, sudden rainstorms over the mangroves. It’s wildly beautiful, on the brink of spring, lashed by rain and gales – and tinged with a sense of threat and impermanence.
It feels as if something has been hit by a barrage of forces, and is quietly shocked and quivering. What is creating this atmosphere of uncertainty? Is it to do with the state of our democracy?
The news media is a crucial element of a democratic system. Populist politicians have had a recent masterclass from Trump: if you can convince people the free press is their enemy, then journalists struggle to hold politicians to account. Truth is actively rejected. In the US, Trump supporters are now expressing outrage at their leaders’ statements being “fact checked”. “Fact checking” has become blasphemous – how dare journalists question the Maga faith?
We have a looseness with guard rails, a national suspicion of formality.
Once you persuade citizens to avoid ethical, fact-based news reporting, you’ve neatly tricked them into disempowering themselves. You can lie to them all you like. Any local politician who attacks our media with eye-rolling and statements that start with, “Here we go again” (meaning how dare you question me even though I’m a paid public servant) should have a degree of shame about the historical company they’re keeping.
Perhaps the weakening of institutions contributes to the current sense of uncertainty. We swing from one short parliamentary term to another, throwing out previous infrastructure plans. We don’t have a solid legal framework to prevent lobbyists infiltrating government. We don’t take seriously the need for a well-resourced public broadcaster that acts in the interests of the people. We’re not frightened enough of losing ours. We allow ourselves to be pushed and pulled by minority interests. We don’t adequately fund institutions, and then we’re worried by their dysfunction. We don’t treat our environment as our greatest asset. And then, when we’ve gone a bit far and the place feels like a shantytown, we start to wonder. Has it got a bit spartan around here? And why are all the kids leaving?
If they’re threatened with erosion by populism, institutions need to uphold the rules themselves. A journalist treats a court case as his own comedy-drama. An MP takes paid leave to appear on a reality TV show. Are these serious people? There’s little reaction from the institutions they’ve diminished.
Populism often wears a comic mask. In the US, it has ushered in hardline intolerance. Here, if you complain about unserious people, you’re a bad sport. We have a looseness with guard rails, a national suspicion of formality. We maintain our refusal to take things seriously. Try telling some people they’re undermining the rule of law, they’re playing fast and loose, they’re destructive. They’ll only roll their eyes and scoff. “Here we go again,” they’ll say.
